Completion and fulfillment, a phase with three activities

Heraldic edition:

Its objective is the definitive edition of the blazon and
its explanatory texts illustrated with images of the coat of arms,
accompanied by the heraldic objects that complement it and adorned
with a specific framework tailored to each registrant.

Its outcome is a catalog of delivery of the heraldic work
stamped, signed, dated and numbered.

Final review and delivery:

Its goal is a last review of the complete work and
to perform the latest appropriate corrections.

The result is the delivery of the work to its holder,
point where the heraldic services end.

Documentation and closure of records:

Its goal is to finish the internal documentation of the work and
the final archival of both the intermediate material and
the final result.

The result is a new record, keyed on the numbering of the heraldic catalog,
in a documentary and graphic content management file.

My heraldic art is a mixed of techniques that combine
the manual realization with the digital process.
The reason is that, for each specific creative activity,
I try to choose the technique that best suits
the goal I intend to achieve.

Drawing freehand

The natural motives are especially suitable to drawing freehand.
I go through this job straight with black ink,
without previous pencil schemes, with as long as possible ink traces,
without lifting the pen, using 0.1 mm thin feathers,
making scrolls automatically,
without passing twice through the same point with the same movement.
This technique comes from the automatic tracing as
referred to in the third stage of the article entitled
pictorial evolution and influences.

In figures with an eye I always by it and then follow by the right ear,
the hair of the head, left ear, neck, back, tail,
circulating at the maximum possible speed in the clockwise direction,
skirting the figure to the left front leg, where I stop.
Then, I do return to the right ear, down to the nose, mouth, tongue, chin,
the lower part of the neck,
circulating at the maximum possible speed counterclockwise,
bordering the figure until the left front leg,
where I stopped in the first round.

This tracing technique has the advantage of generating long lines,
which seem to circulate freely,
but it has the disadvantage of admitting neither mistakes nor retracings.
In case of errors, the suitable choice is to finish the figure,
to see the final result and be able to detect
possible points of special difficulty towards the end of the tracing and
right after to trace the whole figure again in a blank sheet,
using the previous one as visual support.
The reiterated result is to have to follow this process several times
up to reaching a satisfactory level of execution.
As a curiosity, I've noticed that the 1st figure
often contains errors of ink path,
the best is usually the 2nd and in some cases the 3rd,
but from the 4th on, although there is no longer errors,
the result is often more baroque.

Technical outlining

For the tracing of some figures, especially geometric,
I use classic technical drawing skills.
In this way vair, vairy, divisions, geometric ordinaries, bordures,
checkys, etc.
are calculated and outlined technically.

In some cases figures that are delineated technically are also
hand-touched in order to compare techniques and be able to select
the most suitable technique for the ongoing coat of arms.

Tincture of elements

In order to tincture field, ordinaries and charges
I always start with plain colours and metals.
In fact all my shields always have a version in plain colours.
Then I build the volumes by means of lightings and shadows and
applying appropriate finishings,
by adding and removing hues and texturing surfaces.
In some cases I do this process on the whole shield,
in other, more laborious way, each field, ordinaries and charge
is treated separately.
This technique of working on flat base colours for later lighting and
texturing follows my previous graphic work on color coated paper,
which are described in the first stage of the article entitled
pictorial evolution and influences.

In the final stages I try and choose the best of two options as applied
to the already tinctured and finished charges:

Represent them outlined in sable with its original layout.

Let the tincture of the shield's field give them
their final delineation.

Working process

I perform the workflow mainly over sheets size DIN A1,
in vertical orientation, 84,1 cm x 59.4 cm,
attaching to drawings annotations, metadata, samples of colour, etc.
I make and archive these DIN A1 forms sequentially as
I go through the steps described in the section entitled
heraldic creation methodology.

At the end of the work, all of these DIN A1 forms together,
make up what could be called a «making-of» of the coat of arms,
that is, the history of their creation process.

My artistic evolution can be classified into three 3 major phases,
each of them marked by the influence of a particular school.
These three stages, in turn, made their own contributions to
my current heraldic production:

Pop Art: At the beginning of the 1980s,
most of my initial work was tuned to the Pop Art.
From there comes my interest in the representation of objects,
the use of spot and basic colours,
the production oriented to its graphic reproduction,
the use of mixed techniques and
the principles of clarity and cleanliness,
so present in my current production.
At the end of this stage I start to work on thick, but delicate,
coated paper of the base colour of the table on which I apply colours
and textures by adding elements of colour or by the destruction
of the base itself.

Geometric abstraction and abstract expressionism:
During the 2nd half of the 80's, my art evolves towards geometric
abstraction in the line and to abstract expressionism in the color.
Since then I base my painting in the two-dimensionality of the plane,
the use of simple shapes, in harmonies with or without symmetries or
with apparent symmetries, reinforcing the use of basic colours:
yellow, red, blue, sometimes with white as a neutral background and
black as a delimiter, which is the purest tradition of Heraldry.

Surrealism and symbolism:
Both two previous stages converged at the beginning of the 90s
with my surreal and symbolic background to produce,
during the following two decades,
hundreds of automatic painting works in ink and watercolor
characterized by a series of personal characteristics.
Undoubtedly this evolution marks my current heraldic production.
For example, the patterns inside the mantling of my shields are made
with the mind of automatic state or
the overall assembly of the heraldic work where symbolism is a constant.
At this stage I usually use Fabriano paper of 300 grams,
usually 100% cotton, liquid ink pens to favor speed,
Vallejo (brand) liquid watercolors and, sometimes,
as a complement, paste watercolours Winsor & Newton.

I am an editor of both literature and technical books, registered in the
ISBN Agency of the Spanish Ministry of Culture.
I do also work in translation and illustration of key poetry works.
Some examples of this activity are:

The illustration of "Les Fleurs du Mal"
by Charles Baudelaire.
I have done 128 pictures for the poems included in the 1861 edition
using a mix of techniques on coated paper,
which became a first free French edition.
There is an upcoming bilingual edition in French and Spanish.

Translation of Chinese medieval poetry of the Tang dynasty
(centuries VII to X),
using a method of translation of Jué jù poems, with metric,
but without rhyme, seeking an isomorphism with the original that
allows you to associate, using colour schemes, each character in
classical Chinese with English and its representation and current
Chinese pronunciation.
These illustrated translations were published in different issues
of the Chinese Economy and Society Observatory (OES China).

In addition, I have authored the cover of «der Rückfall»
a magazine of the Technische Universität München and illustrations
of the opening chapter of the book
«Time's Up; Finding Resonance and Relevance in Revelation»
by Bill Albing.

I have the grades of Doctor cum laude and graduate from
the Technical University of Madrid (UPM),
Master from the IESE Business School at the University of Navarra (UNAV),
Specialist by the Department of Private Law at the
University of Burgos (UBU) and
a Diploma by UCAM Universidad Católica San Antonio of Murcia (Spain),
among other qualifications.

I have had the honour of being a member of the constituent cloister
of the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) under democratic rule.

I have collaborated with Miguel Angel Núñez on a project which
was awarded a 2nd Prize in Research in Military Psychology of the
Spanish Ministry of Defence.

I have been quoted in
the research and science paper Investigación y Ciencia
(Spanish edition of Scientific American),
in the weekly economic paper L’Econòmic,
interviewed by ED-Daily Meetings and
referenced in
the Sigart Bulletin from ACM Press (California),
in the Artificial Intelligence directory of
Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
(formerly the American Association for Artificial Intelligence),
in Madrid I+D
(regional administration Research and Development policies agency)
and by a:Ditoday (Barcelona).

I have performed public presentations and made publications,
among other institutions, at the Enterprise Institute,
the Institute of International Research,
SAS Institute, the International Federation of Automatic Control,
Forecast & Strategy Club, for the Fundación Ortega y Gasset and
The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).